Russia appears ready to sell Venezuela the same five advanced
S-300PMU-1 air defense missile battalions it withheld from Iran because
of international sanctions. debkafile's military sources report Venezuela's ruler
Hugo Chavez, offered to buy them when he met Russian President Dmitry
Medvedev in Moscow Thursday, Oct. 14. Israel immediately turned to
Washington to try and block the transaction. Clearly, the
highly-sophisticated interceptors are bound for their original client,
Iran, through its good friend Chavez.
This time, the deal will be much harder to stop.
Our military sources stress that Iran needs the S-300 as the key to the
effective defense of its nuclear and strategic sites against air or
missile attack - even by cruise missiles - and to raising the risk to
the assailants of heavy casualties. That said, the Israeli Air Force has
spent the last two years training intensively in tactics for countering
those very Russian interceptors. In September, Israel and Greece
carried out joint practice strikes against the S-300 missiles Athens had
purchased from Moscow.
Chavez began his Moscow visit by voicing interest in "buying different
types of Russian-made air defense systems to create a multilayered air
defense network."
The day after his offer, Russia cautiously tested the water in
Washington to find how the Obama administration reacted to the prospect
of ballistic missile interceptors being deployed not only in Iran but in
the United States' Latin American backyard.
Igor Korotchenko, head of a Moscow think tank on the international arms
trade, revealed: "Russia is looking for a buyer for five battalions of
S-300PMU-1 defense systems ordered by Iran and Venezuela could become
such a buyer."
He knew enough about the deal to disclose that Caracas was prepared to
pay the asking price of $800 million in cash to expedite the deal
although it asked Moscow for several loans to cover previous arms
transactions, including the recent $2.2 billion purchase of 92 Russian
T-72 tanks and the Smerch multiple launch rocket systems.
Our sources add Iran rather than Venezuela is in a hurry to get hold of
the missiles and install them around its most vulnerable sites. There
should be no delay once they reach Tehran because special units of the
Iranian Revolutionary Guards had finished training on the weapon's
operation in Russia.debkafile's
sources note that hardly a month has gone by since Sept. 22 when
Medvedev publicly announced the S-300 missile system sale to Iran was
cancelled - to wide acclaim from the US and Israeli media. Moscow lost
no time in finding a neat stratagem for bypassing the UN sanctions
barring arms sales to Iran with impunity. Even the Russian offer to
return the $166.8 million Iran advanced for the deal can be covered by
Caracas as intermediate customer.